Lesson plan based on Amenemhet
Determine and compare hieroglyph content and frequency to sentences constructed in an alternative alphabet based on symbols that mimic sounds of the alphabet.
Skills and Focus: Calculation
Subject Area: Mathematics
Thematic Connection: Signs and Symbols
Grade Level: Middle School
Time Needed: 90 minutes
Objectives
• Understand the relative frequency of hieroglyphs on the relief.
• Make and critique inferences based on the relative frequency of repeated letters.
Instructional Materials Needed
Story: What Does This Show?
Activity
Step 1: Using the printout of the stone relief, have students decide which images are hieroglyphs and which ones are not.
Step 2: Have students cross out the duplicate hieroglyphs and then count the number of individual hieroglyphs that remain.
Critical Thinking Ask students to
• state how many hieroglyphs show animals and how many show plants.
• explain how the names of different birds, plants, or other familiar things might be used to represent sounds.
Step 3: Discuss with students how many letters in the Roman alphabet have names similar to common persons, places, or things (i.e., B = bee, C = sea). Ask students to create an alternative alphabet using a bee to stand for B, and so on, and count up the number of plant, animal and other derived letters that make up their alphabets. Compare results to the Amenemhet inscription.
Step 4: Have students write a sentence or two (about 20 words) in the alternative alphabet they created. Compare the number of repeated signs (letters) in each student’s sentence to the number repeated on the relief. Do the results suggest that Egyptian hieroglyphs had more or fewer signs than the Roman alphabet? Discuss possible pitfalls of this sampling process, such as the ritual nature of the Amenemhet inscription and repetition of proper names.
Goals
This activity meets Illinois State Goal 6: Demonstrate and apply a knowledge and sense of numbers, including basic arithmetic operations, number patterns, ratios, and proportions.
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